


Refresher Course

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Series: Married Life (theme from Up plays) [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AM route, F/M, Post Game, and not a single conflict was to be found, happy annette week annette deserves kisses, married life fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: listen this is just 3000 words of Felix Fraldarius staring at his wife in awe and adoration. Happy Annette Week, everyone
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Married Life (theme from Up plays) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742692
Comments: 30
Kudos: 86





	Refresher Course

Felix Fraldarius was a man in want of a distraction.

He’d had plenty of distraction during the war. No, he’d plenty of _focus_ during the war. Soldier after soldier, battle after battle, hit after hit after hit after hit. He was good at it, and it kept him too occupied to imagine that he would ever need to be good at anything else. The end of the war had been, all in all, a rude awakening, even if it was something he’d longed for.

To be fair, he was reasonably good at paperwork and treaties. He wasn’t good at diplomacy, but he was intimidating enough that squabbling lords of minor territories usually gave him what he wanted. And it certainly kept him occupied. He just rather wished, at the moment, that he could be occupied by literally anything else.

Felix squinted down at the letter in front of him. The handwriting was ostentatious and the prose was tortured. He could name several of his former classmates who would adore it, but he thought it was drivel, and a waste of his time. And he wasn’t _entirely_ sure what the letter was asking him to do. It had something to do with providing forces, or possibly forcing provisions, possibly from local villagers. It might have been a tax increase, or related to a tax increase from years ago. He wasn’t sure.

He didn’t want to do it. But he had to figure out what it was that he didn’t want to do before he sent a reply. And Dimitri had gently suggested at their last meeting in Fhirdiad that perhaps he could be more courteous in his replies in the future, at least the ones in letter form, which left a paper trail that the king could potentially have to respond to. Felix sighed and reached into his desk to pull out a piece of paper with diplomatic synonyms for the phrase “brainless waste of space.” He’d been developing it over the last few months. He was going to need it today.

The door to the study opened and Felix hastily shoved the paper back into the drawer – he didn’t need his chief advisors knowing he was still relying on such a rudimentary cheat sheet. Felix blinked in surprise as a large stack of books walked into his office, wearing a flouncy skirt and stockings with bows at the knees.

“Done studying already, Annette?” he asked his wife. Stacks of books, couldn’t walk, of course. That would be silly.

Annette’s head peeked around the side of the book tower, her bangs falling into her face and her cheeks tinged pink from exercise. Felix’s study was on the fourth floor.

“It’s not studying if you’re the teacher, Felix,” she corrected him cheerfully. “I already know all the material by memory; I just needed a quick refresher course.”

“You probably didn’t even need that,” Felix pointed out. He had little doubt Annette could lecture extensively on all but the most advanced levels of magic at the drop of a hat, and the School of Sorcery had been very clear when they offered her winter courses that they were only looking for the most rudimentary basics of battle magic. He frowned as she shuffled over to his desk, books swaying unsteadily at the top of the stack. “You might need help carrying those books, though.”

“Well, I don’t _now_ , Mr. Timing,” Annette said, dropping the books on his desk with a loud thunk. She gingerly divided the stack in half, a reasonable but still precarious position – she hadn’t done a particularly good job ensuring the largest books would be at the bottom. “You know, there was a time when you would have leapt over your desk to help me carry these without even asking. Chivalry is truly dead,” she lamented, leaning her arms on the taller stack of books and fixing Felix with mournful eyes.

“Well, good. Chivalry is stupid,” Felix muttered, refusing to be guilt tripped for not performing acrobatic flips over his desk the moment she opened the door. Feeling guilty regardless, he added, “If you’re taking them back to the library, I can give you a hand.”

“They actually belong in your study – these aren’t the books about magic; I just needed a brain break and thought I’d bring them back,” Annette said, already picking one off the top of the stack and walking over to Felix’s row of bookshelves to file it in place.

“Why were you reading about –” Felix picked a book off the stack and read the title, “ _100 Famous Swords and the Assassins Who Loved Them_?” It sounded pretty interesting. And vaguely familiar.

“I wasn’t, Felix,” Annette said, shelving the first book and grabbing to on her return trip. “These are all the books you’ve left around the castle for the past four months. It took me the better part of an hour to grab them off all the side tables and couch cushions.” She paused, then added, “I guess I needed a pretty long brain break.”

“Oh, well,” Felix said, chagrined. “If I leave them there, then it’s easier to find them later.”

“No Felix, if you _shelve them properly_ , then it’s easier to find them later,” Annette said, cheerfully, but firmly. Felix could already predict how much her students were going to love her and fear her in equal measure. And somehow she was still worried the teaching offer would only last one term.

“If I can’t help carry, can I help shelve?” he asked, eager to get back in her good graces.

Annette peered over the stack of books at the letter on the table. “Who are you writing to?” she asked.

“Lord Iacto,” Felix said glumly. “About taxes.”

“Gross,” Annette said unsympathetically. She turned back to the shelves, five books in her arms now. “I’ll let you do the high shelves, but no. You’re just trying to get out of writing that letter. And I don’t want to have to do it for you later. You’re going to have to write them all on your own while I’m away teaching, you know.”

Felix glared at the letter as if it were personally responsible for the distance between Fraldarius and the Royal School of Sorcery. The letter remained unperturbed. Felix turned back to Annette, who was no longer paying attention to him, and closed his mouth before he could offer up a rejoinder. She was already beginning to hum some new tune as she stretched to reach a shelf just within reach, pushing two books aside to make space for the addition. If he didn’t speak up, she might forget he was there entirely. He liked the world Annette had created for herself when no one was around – it was musical and dreamlike, as unpredictable as it was memorable. He watched her skirt swish to the side dramatically as she leaned a little too far to shelve her final book; listened to the wordless arpeggio that descended when he’d expected it to go higher. He wondered what this song would be about. It was impossibly cheery and delightfully upbeat, so his top two guesses were a terrifying monster or tax reform.

Annette spun around on her heel and stopped on a dissonant note when she saw Felix, an unresolved penultimate chord hanging in the air. “Felix!” she said. “You’re not even _writing_ the letter, are you!”

Felix blinked back into reality. He wasn’t even holding a pen, let alone looking at the letter. He’d been leaning against his hand, his elbow propped on the writing desk, mapping the way Annette’s curls cascaded down her back when she tilted her head up to read the title of a book on the fourth shelf.

“Guess not,” he said, sitting up with a shrug. “That dress looks nice on you.”

“Felix,” Annette whined, covering her cheeks but not fast enough to hide the blush that was spreading across them.

“I mean it,” Felix said, dropping his voice low and conspiratorial, although the chance of anyone listening at the door was improbable. “I just think you look nice today.” Felix wasn’t sure if Annette squeaked because of the compliment or because of the way he said it or because of how his eyes passed over her as he said it. He didn’t care which it was, really. He just liked the way her eyes widened at him.

“ _Felix_ ,” Annette repeated, finding a way to put fresh and innovative indignation on the syllables. “You can’t just – you have things to do! And I can’t work with you sitting there. . . _studying_ me.”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said it wasn’t studying if you already had it memorized. I just needed a –” he bit back a smile, at her self-righteous pout, at his own terrible joke, at how safe and unimportant and _everyday_ their conversations were, after years of talking about the best way to survive another day, or worse, not talking about the chance that they wouldn’t survive another day. “I just needed a refresher course,” he finally concluded, and he’d failed, and he was smiling, and Annette knew he was pleased with himself even if she hadn’t always learned that he could be pleased with himself without it being at her expense. Annette puffed out her cheeks and marched over to where he was sitting, a stomping foot punctuating each insult she threw at him.

“Villain! Lecherous, insatiable, self-satisfied –” Annette paused as she reached Felix’s chair. Felix realized she had probably expected him to make some sort of protest before she reached this point. He tried to think of a good defense.

“I . . . I don’t think I’m _all_ of those things,” he said. He reached out and caught one of the billowing sleeves, running the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. “Insatiable, maybe? But the others seem harsh.”

Annette caught at his wrist, pulling his hand off her sleeve and sliding her hand down until they were locking fingers. “I swear to Cethleann,” she murmured, looking at their entwined fingers, not at him. “Could you _be_ any more distracting?”

“I can certainly try,” Felix said, and he pulled her into a kiss.

Well, the tales of chivalry and knighthood and courtly love would say Felix pulled Annette into a kiss. In actuality she was already halfway climbing into his lap before he had a chance to answer her at all, and she pressed her lips against his with such eagerness that Felix leaned back in surprise, a small, reactive part of him still not used to being wanted. Annette pitched forward against him and he snaked a hand around her waist to balance her even as she grabbed onto his collar to pull herself to him more closely. Annette hummed happily against him as he traced his tongue across her lips briefly, experimentally, and it was the concluding note to the song that he’d been desperately trying to resolve in his mind for the past five minutes without realizing it. He could feel her smiling against him and the pleasant heat radiating from her cheeks and the light, nervous brushes of her fingers as she danced them across his jacket, unsure of where to land. She was warm and she was safe and she was _happy_ and the whole situation was perfectly, deliciously not what they were supposed to be doing with their day.

Annette pulled away suddenly, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and then, more gently, brushing Felix’s bangs in a mirrored repetition. “I'm sorry,” she mumbled, not quite looking him in the eye. “You . . . your letter. You have business to attend to.”

“Annie,” Felix breathed back. She’d broken the kiss, but her face was still very close. He weaved a loose wave of hair around his fingers, absently. “When does term start at the school of Sorcery?” he asked, watching the fiery strands circle around his finger, and the way the curl stayed loosely in place as he dropped it back to her shoulder.

“In two weeks,” Annette said, and she sounded dazed and just a little unsure of her reply, although she knew the answer to this question by heart, had all but made a countdown calendar for the start of her new vocation.

“And how long,” Felix continued, brushing the curl behind her ear and letting his fingers linger along the back of her hair. “Will winter term be at the school this year?”

“About three months,” Annette said, faintly.

“Then I think,” Felix said softly, “I have more important business to attend to than that letter.”

He was more confident in the kiss this time – more confident that she wanted it, yes, but also more certain that this was what they were doing with the rest of their afternoon. Felix leaned forward into the kiss, his hand still cradling the back of her head, and Annette wrapped her hands around his shoulders, pulling him upright in his chair until she was almost standing again. So Felix did stand, picking Annette up as he leaned into her and setting her down on top of the desk. Annette positively giggled as Felix closed the gap between them once more, her hands searching and wanting as she reached out to him. When she broke the kiss a second time that day, she didn’t pull away so much as turn her head, and Felix found his nose against her hair, his lips on her neck.

“You know, you can visit me whenever you want, at Fhirdiad,” she said, always one to fix problems, to make sure Felix wouldn’t worry. “Dimitri says you can stay in the palace if you want. And my parents have townhouse in the capital; you could stay with them.”

Felix muttered something into Annette’s neck, but to the benefit of their continued domestic bliss, it was largely incomprehensible. 

Annette giggled, knowing perfectly well her idea wasn’t well received. As if to continue the tease, she spread her hands behind her and leaned backwards, forcing Felix to follow after her, which he gladly did.

“We could always get our own place in town, you know,” she said. “Or you could abdicate your title and come teach with me full time. I bet you’d be great at – oops!”

Her hand, skirting backwards across the table, had knocked straight into the remaining stack of books, which had always been the more precarious one. She looked away from Felix with a gasp as it teetered slowly and mockingly, but not quite slowly enough for her to catch it before the books plummeted over the edge of the desk, crashing to the ground. They landed awkwardly in a pile of bent spines and newly crumpled pages.

Annette threw her hands to her face in horror and Felix pulled her closer, placing an arm around her with a nonsensical feeling of protectiveness. He’d admittedly felt vaguely useless after hanging his sword up, he hoped for good, following the war. But he could protect Annette from a cascade of falling books if necessary. She buried her face against him until the last book had tumbled to the ground, and he realized her shoulders were shaking. Felix pulled her back, quickly, looking down at her with concern, but quickly realized that she was silently, desperately _laughing_.

“ . . . who put all those books there?” Annette squeaked out, and then burst into a new peal of giggles. Felix ran his fingers through his hair, chuckling slightly. All of his plans for the afternoon had been once more derailed, but it was hard to be that upset about it when Annette was doubled over with laughter, grabbing his arm for balance. She sniffled as she regained her breath, wiping a tear from her eye with a contented sigh. But contentedness was always short-lived for Annette – she jumped to her feet and marched over to the stack of books, setting them back up on the desk one-by-one in a slightly more carefully constructed pile.

Felix sighed and grabbed a book off the top of the stack. _How to Name Your Weapon_. He wrinkled his nose. Why had he even been reading this one?

Annette plucked it out of his hands and strode over to the bookshelves, confidently placing it on the second shelf, where a slight gap made locating its former location easy. Felix still hadn’t fully gotten the hang of her filling system, which was something like organized by topic and cross-indexed by author name, but he picked up the stack of books and went to diligently stand next to Annette, ready to reach the high shelves when she needed.

“You really don’t have to help me shelve these, you know,” she said, all business again, briskly taking a book from the middle of the stack to place on the third shelf. Felix caught the uppermost books before they fell again, settling them back on top of the stack.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, shifting the books to get an easier hold on them. “Or at least, maybe I don’t, but I want to.”

Annette gave him a wry, slight smile. “I guess chivalry isn’t dead after all,” she deadpanned, grabbing another book and reaching up towards the top shelf.

Felix frowned. “Is it still chivalry if I’m only doing it because I get something out of it?” he asked, pondering.

Annette cast a sharp, curious glance at Felix. “And what is it you want?” she asked, stretching to reach the top shelf, the task made more difficult by her insistence on locking eyes on Felix instead of looking at what she was doing.

Felix reached up and grabbed the book, shoving it forward with little regard for whether he was following correct filing protocols. He also didn’t break eye contact, for once.

“A distraction,” he said, and he nearly dropped the books himself at the smile Annette gave him in return.

He’d write his letters about tax policy tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, "How To Name Your Weapon" was written by Owain and yes, it is 400 pages long.
> 
> Happy Annette Week! I said I wasn't going to write anything and then I saw [ this art ](https://twitter.com/rurueroori/status/1259509182379638787) on twitter and I was like "hmmm I would like to write about that." So here we are! I think we can count this as "Clumsy", right? Listen. I don't know what I'm doing. I just think Annette is neat and should have all the things she wants in life.
> 
> [ I am also on twitter if that's your scene. ](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes)


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